The English later stated that HMS Sheffield had been attacked with an Exocet and that another missile had passed by in front of the Yarmouth Frigate. Both missiles were pointed at the large target, ie they had the same coordinates. The Exocet, among its many abilities, has the possibility to change targets if it does not find its target in the specified route, but also has proximity fuses that make it detonate if it passes very close to the ship without actually impacting it. These and other characteristics of the missile allow us to conclude that it is extremely difficult for a missile to hit a ship and the remainder pass long in front of that or another ship, without having changed direction by not finding anything in its initial route or exploding by Its proximity expoletas. There are several specialists who claim that the big target was impacted and that it was the Hermes aircraft carrier. Fact that would be compatible with the little activity of this one after the 4 of May.
In all cases, there were always three medium and one large targets. Both the Neptune and the Super Etendard confirmed such echoes on their screens. The official British statement indicated that HMS Sheffield had been hit, but if that was correct and effectively the "big" ship impacted was Sheffield, then the other three medium echoes should be about half the size of the large echo. Since Sheffield was approximately 120 meters in length, the only possibility that it would be the large target would be for the other three vessels not to exceed 50-60 meters, but the interesting thing is that the fleet did not have in the Zone of the conflict vessels of 50 meters in length. Taking into account that a Hermes aircraft carrier is approximately 200 meters in length and that the destroyers and frigates are between 120 and 100 m, it is far more reasonable to suppose that a large target (200 m) is escorted by two medium targets (100 To 120 m). It is known that both Exocets were shot to large targets. It is very unlikely that one misses the technical characteristics of this missile, but it is highly unlikely that two missiles targeting the same target will fail both.
The Argentine position is therefore evidenced as much more solid, ie the target hit was actually the aircraft carrier HMS HERMES and not the Sheffield:
Why then did the British declare that the ship destroyed was Sheffield?
Most likely, in fact, the Sheffield would have been attacked by the Argentine Air Force on the first day of fighting. When the Hermes was hit, the destruction of the Sheffield was bleached and the aircraft carrier failure, which represented a very serious setback for the fleet, was concealed. The British navy was considered invulnerable ... how then an aircraft carrier was seriously damaged? ... Perhaps two Exocet are not enough to sink an aircraft carrier, but surely the damage produced in its "dead" by two missiles of these characteristics must Be considerate.
For the supposed invulnerability of the fleet it was inadmissible to acknowledge what happened, in addition to a news of these characteristics would be more than sufficient cause for NATO to demand the Prime Minister return the fleet, and thus avoid discharging the countries Europeans in the face of the Soviet threat. For some reason, the British Government has imposed the Secret of War on everything that happened in the Malvinas. Very probably because in this case and in others that happened later, it would be catastrophic to prove that the British fleet did not present the strength that was believed, in addition to severely harming the political interests of Magaret Hilda Thatcher.
In 1981, Argentina had made a contract with the French government to purchase 14 Super Etendars and 14 Exocets
. By April 2, 1982, Argentina had only received 5 aircraft and 5 missiles. Had all the planes and missiles available, Argentina could have won the war.
